


sign names

by saintpyrite



Category: Jacksepticeye Universe, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 5 Times, British Sign Language, JJStein, M/M, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27702389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintpyrite/pseuds/saintpyrite
Summary: It takes Henrik five attempts to figure out what his sign name means.
Relationships: Henrik von Schneeplestein/Jameson Jackson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	sign names

Henrik has always had an eye for detail, so he doesn't know how this escaped him. He's supposed to be the observant one, he knows all the nuances of his friends and their ridiculous habits. Chase tells more self-deprecating jokes than normal when he's spiralling, Jackie is having a good day when he puts an extra spoonful of sugar in his coffee, Marvin talks to himself when he's close to figuring out his spells. Henrik is certain he has his own quirks. He doesn't know what they are but he has them, he's certain. 

So it surprises him when he realises he's never given any notice to the way Jameson signs with the others, presumably nonsensical movements he cannot understand. 

Then he realises he doesn't know what Jameson is saying, that he doesn't understand. How embarrassing. 

* * *

**1.**

It starts off with Jackie because Jameson appears to enjoy the superhero's company. Henrik figures it makes sense, the pair of them are endless sources of optimism. 

"Guten Morgen," Henrik powered through a yawn, shuffling through the shared kitchen of his apartment to the coffee machine. "You know you both don't live here, right?" 

Jackie flashed a key at Henrik and yes, of course, Jackie had taken the emergency key again. 

"You should hide your emergency key better, doc," he'd teased, "We were out of coffee." 

Henrik ought to scold them for treating his house as a pit stop, coming in and out as they pleased and eating his food when they didn't even pay rent. He had one roommate already, he'd never asked for four more. 

He doesn't though. It's good company and as much as he berates them at times, Henrik enjoys the days where it's a little chaotic. His friends bring personality to his little abode. 

He couldn't get rid of them if he tried. 

"Did you sleep well?" Jameson signs, he moves slowly so Henrik can pick up the movements with bleary, tired eyes. "You look tired." 

"Late shift," Henrik says decisively, pouring the coffee out into his second favourite mug. He notices Jameson has the one he's most fond of but he doesn’t kick up a fuss. "I'll be fine after my coffee, carry on as normal while I gather my bearings." 

He hears the two talk. 

Well, he hears Jackie talk and Jameson signs. Henrik doesn't partake in the conversation, still coming around but he tunes in every once in a while. He picks up the odd sign here and there, he's not perfect at sign language but it's a slow and steady process. Henrik feels a little stupid when Jackie and Marvin were so quick to pick it up though. It wasn't that he thought they were unintelligent by any means, it's just that he was a doctor, sign language should be a piece of cake. 

And then - he sees the sign. Jackie talks about the gang getting together for a night, how it's being too long but that isn't what catches Henrik's eye. It's the way Jameson signs, a few words he picks up on and he thinks the man may be talking about him but he doesn't fingerspell his name the way he usually does. The sign is strange, the usual BSL sign for H but he brings it close to the chin and he circles his face. 

"What sign was that?" he asks. 

Jameson looks over and blinks owlishly at him, sharing eye contact for what feels like a very long time. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights. 

"It's your name sign," Jackie pipes up, saving the day. 

Henrik takes a sip of his coffee and watches as Jameson fidgets with the cuffs of his freshly pressed shirt. He never thought about Jameson giving him a name sign before. It must make talking about others easier. 

"He has name signs for all of us," Jackie continues when Jameson doesn't budge. 

"How convenient," Henrik smiles at Jameson, setting his mug down. "What does mine mean?" 

Jameson shares a look with Jackie before he signs with a sheepish smile, "You're smart, you'll figure it out." 

"Hm, if that's how you want to be."

Jameson offers a shrug in response as if it’s no big deal but his cheeks are a soft red hue. It makes Henrik's fingers twitch against his coffee cup. He hates being left out of the loop, especially when Jackie gives him those shit-eating grins because of course, the idiot knows. 

* * *

**2.**

The second time it happens, Henrik starts to clue in on the fact that everyone else knows his name sign. 

Everyone but him, obviously. 

"It was fun having everyone over," Chase is talking to Jameson from the door, the other man being the last one to leave their little group get-together. "We should do it again." 

Henrik leans back on the sofa, watching the exchange. Chase doesn't sign often, he knows Jameson can hear him and he's managed to pick up on the signs enough to carry a conversation without using them himself. 

"I'd like that," Jameson signs, a bright smile lighting up his features. His whole body is expressive, so open and Henrik wonders if it comes from using sign language as your main form of communication or if Jameson was always so eccentric and telling, "I did promise you sign language lessons after all."

This is a pointless conversation to be eavesdropping, Henrik decides but he keeps watching.

He's looking for a reason though, his name sign. He wants to see it again. 

"I'll check with Henrik," Chase has a cheeky smile on his face, signing the doctor's name sign. It's so jarring when it's the only sign in the whole sentence and it’s impossible to ignore, "I'm sure he'll be fine with you coming over though." 

Jameson' face grows red and the man's grip on his hat tightens, crushing it against his chest. Henrik watches him go to sign with one hand, a lightning round of movements and shapes he can't hope to follow. Whatever Chase is insinuating, it’s making Jameson go red in the face and Henrik feels as if he may be intruding now.

"Chase," Henrik calls out, "You're letting the heat out." 

The vlogger huffs, sparing a glance over his shoulder at the doctor before he finishes up his goodbye. Jameson flees, his hat pulled on over his head to try and hide his embarrassment. 

“What was that about?” Henrik asks. He watches Chase open his mouth and close it again, repeating the whole charade a few times. “The name sign, Chase.”

“Oh, that?” Chase repeated the sign again, clumsy and too fast. He isn’t as fluid when it comes to signing, he tries though. 

“Yes, _that_ ,” Henrik frowns, “Jameson won’t tell me what it means.”

“It’s not my place to say then, is it?” 

Chase could be such an aggravating roommate at times.

* * *

**3.**

“Marvin, what makes your kitchen so inhabitable that you insist on doing your alchemy here?”

“Jackie’s making dinner,” Marvin mumbles, focusing on the book in front of him.

The book is littered with ancient text in a dead language, Henrik couldn’t fathom what nonsense is etched into those pages and he isn’t keen on finding out but Marvin is in his kitchen and he needs coffee if he’s going to make it through the night. 

“You’re getting your _ingredients_ everywhere,” Henrik grumbles. 

“I’ll clean up when I’m done,” Marvin retorts back, and then he’s dumping some strange liquid into a pot. It doesn’t explode, though it doesn’t fill Henrik with confidence that his kitchen is safe when Marvin sighs with relief, chest heaving. 

Henrik makes his way to the coffee machine and grimaces at the little puddle of dried red liquid on his white marble counters - that’s going to leave a stain, fuck sake Marvin - before turning it on, letting the pot boil. 

He doesn’t know what to say or how to make a conversation with Marvin when he’s like this, hyper-focused with his tongue sticking out and eyes narrowed. It’s a good look for him, strange nonetheless when he’s used to Marvin making mistakes or using his spells for ridiculous tricks. 

“No Chase to experiment on today?” Henrik tries, as he realises the apartment is quiet without his roommate. He hopes Chase is out filming rather than drowning his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle in a bar somewhere. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Marvin looks up from the book, fingers grazing the old ink on the pages. “Hm? Oh, no, he’s not here. I just let myself in with magic. I figured you wouldn’t mind.” Of course he did, it wasn’t as if any of Henrik’s friends could learn to knock on the door or call ahead of time to ask if he was okay with them barging in and invading his personal space. 

“I see,” is what Henrik comes up with instead of the long list of things he wants to say. “Carry on.”

He watches the way Marvin focuses on the magic and _there_ is the reason Marvin is so good with sign language, his magic requires fluid hand motions and a good memory for the looks of it and now, Henrik is letting himself get distracted by the thoughts of his name sign and Jameson and why he’s so reluctant to share their little inside joke with him. It shouldn’t bother him so much but it does. 

“Do you know what my name sign is?” 

Marvin doesn’t look at him, he just continues to trace the magic circle into the air in the brilliant green energy his hands give off but Henrik knows he heard him, the quirk of his smile says so. 

“Yup,” Marvin says flatly.

He tries not to look too desperate for answers, keeping his hands curled around his mug and his eyes trained on the magic circle. Henrik doesn’t meet Marvin’s eyes when the magician finally looks his way. 

“You’re going to ask me what it means, aren’t you?”

“Don’t use your weird magic on me,” Henrik tries to explain himself, backpedalling as if it was going to help him. He really jumped the gun on this one, throwing out such a question with no build-up and it’s a ridiculous question too, he knows Marvin won’t tell him. “I was just curious.”

Marvin chuckles, “No magic, your face says it all.”

“Are you going to tell me or not?” he snaps, the bite is weaker than the bark, however.

Marvin clicks his tongue as if chastising a child before he turns back to his book and magic circles and other arcane nonsense. It’s his damn apartment, he should be kicking Marvin across the hall and locking him out but instead, he just wants to curl up in his bed and wait for Marvin to leave so they can forget this embarrassment. 

“I’m guessing that’s a no,” Henrik mumbles. 

“It’s a no, good doctor,” Marvin admits and Henrik presses his lips into a tight line to repress the urge to yell out his frustrations. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. 

* * *

**4.**

Out of everybody he knows, Henrik knows better than to rely on the strange, demonic entity that has taken up residency with them. Anti comes and goes as he pleases and more often than not, the visitations he gets from the glitch can be boiled down to insults, demands and wanting to be fed. It was like owning a very temperamental cat, if the cat had a knife and a pissy attitude. 

So when he finds the glitch in his bedroom, perched on his desk with a book in his hand, he’s a little apprehensive about what Anti wants from him this time.

“Anti,” Henrik addresses him, stern and his hands behind his back. He realises the book in Anti’s hand is a BSL handbook, Henrik just hasn’t had the time to go through it but he has a feeling Anti knows why he has the book and that’s even more infuriating than the glitch being here in the first place.

“ _Ah,_ ” the strange entity shuts the book on itself, a broad and devilish grin lighting up his face, “ _Doctor, how are you?”_

“I was doing fine until you showed up uninvited,” Henrik grumbled, watching the demon glitch away from his desk when he approached. The book was left behind, leaving the doctor to try to catch it before it hit the ground. It was one of Jameson’s books, he’d hate to return it damaged, “What do you want, Anti?”

“ _I came for Chase but he’s not here,_ ” the demon’s voice crackled, showing up behind Henrik again with the same menacing grin, “ _You’re pathetic, you know that?”_

“I’m going to regret asking,” Henrik drawled, putting the sarcasm on heavy, “but what brought you to that conclusion?”

“ _This_ ,” Anti glitched, snatching up the book from Henrik’s grip with little effort. There was no use fighting Anti for it, though Henrik was tempted to do so. “ _You’re so desperate to know what makes your name sign the intrigue of the group, getting hung up on a miniscule detail just because you’re not privy to the information when you could just ask.”_

“I’ve tried asking,” he argued back and it wasn’t as if he was lying, it was that everybody else around him was being difficult. “They won’t tell me.” 

Anti passes the book back. “ _You’re quick to give up._ ”

“Hm,” says Henrik, and he stares down at the book in his hand, opening it up to flick through the pages until the images and text blur together, his eyes no longer focused as he doesn’t know what to look for or where to stop in the book. The idea of looking through the whole thing is exhausting, his head weary and heavy with exhaustion. 

He wants to know though, Henrik has to know and he isn’t sure why.

“ _Your interest in Jameson Jackson is an obvious one,_ ” Anti rolls his eyes at the splutter and look of surprise on Henrik’s face, _“The infatuation is nauseating and you appear to be the only one who hasn’t realised that’s why this whole thing bothers you. It’s starting to grow old.”_

“What infatuation?” 

“ _I’m saying you want to see if you can make the man who doesn’t talk, scream,”_ Anti doesn’t cut corners, going between being a terrifying calm to a vulgar cretin with the flick of a switch. “ _Fuckin’ hell, you should see the way you stare at him. Makes Wonderboy across the hall look like he hates the stage magician.”_

So Henrik was interested in Jameson, it wasn’t inherently a romantic interest and even if it was, Henrik didn’t have the time for a romantic relationship. That was just the tip of the iceberg, after all, there was no telling Jameson would feel the same way, it wasn’t as if they were as close to one another as Jameson was with the others. It was merely human to think how well Jameson pulled off the new suit or how his hands were so god damn beautiful up close when he signed--

“Verdammt…” Henrik mutters. 

“ _And boom goes the dynamite_ ,” says Anti. He’s starting to look bored. 

Henrik swallows the lump in his throat, “So what if I happen to find Jameson attractive? The others are no less attractive themselves.”

“ _You don’t want to get your dick wet with Wonderboy or Chaser though, that’s the difference,”_ Anti rolls his eyes, as if this was the most simplistic maths equation on the planet. Maths would be far easier to figure out, in fact, Henrik was certain of that. 

“I guess,” Henrik admits. He’s not sure what to do with the information he’s been given. 

_“Here’s what you’re gonna’ do, you’re gonna’ read this ‘ere book and figure out your name sign for yourself like a big boy”_ Anti says and he’s holding the book out towards the doctor with a devilish grin on his face, the one that feels as if it may latch around your throat at any given moment, the one that he grins when he has all the proof in the world that everyone around him is in the wrong for once. “ _And if ya’ don’t, I’m going to make things real uncomfortable for you and your little puppet.”_

Henrik frowns. He snatches the book, though he has to admit, Anti has been more help than the others thus far. He wasn’t going to tell the demon that. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says, in his default despondent tone.

* * *

**5.**

It’s late. It’s late and he’s hoping Jameson is home.

If he wasn’t running on adrenaline and hype, Henrik would have just called him but he figures everyone barges into his apartment without asking that he should be granted the same privilege, it’s only fair as far as he's concerned. His nerves are cross-wired and he’s jumpy as all hell, Henrik hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. 

“Bro, you good?” Chase asks, pausing his game to watch Henrik walk past and head towards the door, “Where are you going at this hour?”

“Jameson’s place,” Henrik manages to get out as he fiddles with his shoes, “I need to talk to him.”

He doesn’t hear a word of what Chase says afterwards, he’s already out of the door and taking the stairs two at a time. The book is in his hand, trembling against his side where he has it tucked and for once in his life, Henrik doesn’t have any clue what he’s doing. He just hopes he can bring himself to say _something_. That’s how he finds himself outside Jameson’s apartment near the stroke of midnight, a little out of breath for someone who raced up two flights of stairs. 

He knocks on the door, once, twice, three times. It opens up, a bleary-eyed Jameson peering up at him in his crumpled up dress shirt, the waistcoat unbuttoned and the bow-tie discarded. He looks as if he woke up from a nap he never intended to have and Henrik has to resist the urge to smooth out the man’s hair. 

Jameson stifles a yawn and signs, “It’s a little late, isn’t it?”

“I’m an idiot,” Henrik blurts out. It’s not the gracious entry he was hoping for but it’ll do.

“Pardon?” Jameson frowns, his eyebrows knitting together as if he’s trying to understand why Henrik had to come up to his apartment a few minutes from midnight to tell him _that_ , “What do you mean?”

Henrik hands Jameson the book, the man taking it and peering at the cover as if it would hold all the answers. There is a tense, loaded silence between them and it feels as if an eternity passes before Jameson looks up at him again, uncertainty in his eyes as if he’s afraid of where this is going. 

_Henrik_ . It’s a sweeping motion, the H, as his hand comes across his palm and up towards his face to circle it with his finger, drawing attention to his features as a whole. _Good-looking, handsome._

_H-Handsome._

Henrik finds himself repeating the motion, Jameson’s eyes following his hands. Henrik is terrified but it’s the electrifying type of terror that makes him ache and twitch with adrenaline and anxiety. He’s being so desperate to learn his name and now, the knowledge was with him and it sent him hurtling. It was as if he was falling from a great height. 

Jameson, on the other hand, goes sheet-white. 

“I’m sorry!” Jameson says, tremors running through his hands as he does. “It was-- It was a joke I made and everyone caught on, they wouldn’t stop pestering me about it or they went and found out for themselves and it just went from there--”

“You should have told me,” Henrik interrupts before Jameson can spiral, the whole conversation was a rollercoaster of ups and down so far and his stomach couldn’t take it. He doesn’t know if he wants to reach out and take Jameson’s hands for his own or if he wants to see him make the sign again, wants to see Jameson call him handsome for himself. He wants to believe there is a chance here and that he isn’t reading into things, “Can you sign it for me?”

Jameson lets the book fall to the floor, neither of them take notice. His hands tremble and yet, the motion is so fluid that Henrik is surprised his hands don’t behave as a liquid. The way he signs holds a beauty unmatched, the way he’s so gentle and slow about the _handsome_ as if he was taking in Henrik’s face and committing it to memory. Their eyes held steady, fingers twitching and chests heaving.

“Come here,” Jameson takes the first step, beckoning with the curve of his finger and there must be a thread tied to Henrik because he follows the finger as it draws itself into Jameson’s chest. Henrik moves closer and keeps inching forward until Jameson is pulling him into his personal space. 

They’re so close now that they’re sharing air at this point and Henrik reaches up to tuck away the stray strands of hair draping over Jameson’s eye.

“Was there anything else?” he says breathlessly, a silent plea for permission, giving or taking. 

“There was one thing,” Jameson signs and then he’s pulling Henrik down by his shirt, tilting his head forward and kissing him. 

Henrik presses against him, closed-mouth and sweet with his hands wrapped around Jameson’s waist. It’s Jameson who holds him steady, hands running up and falling on either side of his face to keep them steady, a silent demand for something deeper and more demanding than Henrik could have imagined from a man so sweet and silent. The lenses of Henrik’s glasses smudge and bump into Jameson’s nose and there is the tickle of Jameson’s moustache, but Henrik doesn’t care and Jameson doesn’t even notice, too wrapped up in making Henrik putty in his hands. 

He tries to chase Jameson’s lips when the other man pulls away, a whine escaping him that is so indigent he should be embarrassed then he realises they’re in the hallway, or he is anyway, and that just about anybody could pass them. Jameson snickers, eyes glinting with mischief as Henrik’s face heats up. 

“I think we should take this elsewhere,” Jameson points out. 

“Are you inviting me inside then?” Henrik replies, using one hand to sign as best as he could, not wanting to let Jameson go for a second. 

They get as far as the hallway before Jameson braces his hands against the front of Henrik’s shoulders, signing with one hand as he works his way up the doctor’s neck and Henrik melts against the wall. He doesn’t know everything Jameson is signing, he doesn’t care either, as he lets the other man pull him back into another kiss. The others would have questions in the morning, he’s sure.

He’ll deal with that mess when he comes to it.


End file.
